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Monday, April 20, 2009

Nerf Recon Mod - Tagger Dart Compatibility!

As a Nerf game player, it can be abit frustrating to only be able to use Streamline foam darts on your Nerf Recon.

Sometimes you may also want to play Dart Tag games with your Nerf Recons, or you might simply have run out of Streamline foam darts.

Here is a simple mod that will enable your Nerf Recon to chamber and fire Tagger and Sonic foam darts!

Lets start...

Step 1: Take your Nerf Recon, only focus on the pistol section.

Step 2: Unscrew the casing, take note of all the screw locations and loose parts.

Step 3: Note the internal layout, especially the bolt carrier group and how it works.

Step 4: Take the bolt carrier group out of the Recon.

Step 5: Seperate the bolt from the carrier frame holder, you will need to push out a metal securing pin.

Step 6: Put your Tagger dart in to test, notice how its stuck and can't be chambered or fired properly? We will need to create a better fit.

Step 7: Use a hobby craft knife (please be careful) and cut away the flanges on both sides of the bolt.

Step 8: Trim the bolt's dart support thinner and narrower, keep testing with your Tagger dart to work towards a good fit.

Step 9: Remove the pop-up blocker plate, trim the block lines so that it can better fit Tagger darts.

Step 10: Put everything back together and install all the screws securely.

Final Step: Put a Tagger dart in your magazine and test fire your Recon. If it jams or doesn't chamber properly, open up the casing again and do more trimmings and adjustments, it can take some time to achieve a good fit.

Here is a Test Fire Video of my Nerf Recon firing Tagger foam darts:

Being a clip-fed blaster, the Recon will tend to be prone to jams, so my advice is to make sure to use perfect foam darts, load them into the magazines properly and chamber each foam dart steadily.

In addition, do note that N-Strike clips are not originally designed to hold Tagger foam darts, so any clips longer than the 6-dart versions would still have issues working properly due to the foam darts being positioned increasingly at downward angles.

Well, i've yet to figure out a simpler way, would definitely welcome any working suggestions to simplify this modification too. :)

This mod basically allows the Recon to use tagger and sonic darts, just to give it some added flexibility in ammo usage (in case players run out of streamlines or use non-streamlines in the midst of a game to replenish their ammo).

If you are mainly looking to play just Dart Tag, then as you mentioned, sticking velcro at the tips of your streamline darts is a method you can try too, see if it works in your games. :)

Yes, streamlines can still be used after the mod is done... but their performance may be slightly diminished because the streamlines might not be pushed back into the bolt as far, hence creating a slightly reduced bolt-to-dart seal.

Can you use streamlines in the modded recon? Would the mod affect how they're loaded and fired. Since the barell is essentially the bolt, wouldn't cutting away at that do harm to how the streamlines are fired from the gun?

Yes, this mod can also work on the other blasters which use the reverse plunger system (ie. Longstrike or Deploy). There just needs to be proper adjustments and trimming to get the darts to chamber and fit properly.

Sonic darts have a similiar shape to Tagger darts, they can also be fired after this mod is done.

For the metal securing pin at the bolt, just use a small screwdriver and a hammer. Steady the bolt sled on a soft surface and carefully tap out the metal pin. With some patience it'll loosen and then you can pull it out.

I personally find the extra dart storage hole to be useless on the Raider, mostly because it's hell to try to load one dart into that thing without loading it into the magazine first... On the Recon, the hole has some use as you can drop the barrel extension, cock the gun and ram the extra dart in the front end of the gun.

you are the greatest recon modder ever! you should do a plunger repair mod. my plunger broke like the end of it. I fixed it by getting a pvc cap and crazy gluing the crap out of it then i let the glue dry for a week(iwas on vacation) it held good then i got a sponge and traced the plunger shape and carefully pushed it in. its been a week of testibg nonstop and the plunger seems good.

Well, this particular mod is more suitable for firing Tagger or Sonic foam darts.

There are inherent design issues when trying to fire Micro (Suction Tipped) darts from such blasters, the soft concave rubber tips tend to get caught in the chambering system, therefore even after doing this mod, Micro darts are still not suitable to be used in these blasters.

In Step 9 of the mod guide, i trimmed the "pop-up" dart blocker plate (found at the front section of the blaster) so that Tagger and Sonic darts can be chambered more smoothly, this is because those darts tend to be slightly longer than streamline darts.

Did you have any issues with jamming when loading taggers into a clip due to the wider heads? If so, how did you resolve it?I'm looking for a solution where all n-strike blasters are able to fire taggers effectively as they are my ammunition of choice. I'm contemplating if it'll be simpler in the long run if I just design a new streamline tagger dart. I like n-strike's clip system but I also want my darts to stick on my targets. Is there anyone else out there working on this streamline tagger dart idea?

Yup, thats a common issue. I find that the clips can usually hold up to 4 Tagger or Sonic darts quite well and they can chamber properly with that number in the clip, but once the 5th or 6th darts are added, they'll tend to tilt too much due to the uneven stacking of the larger tips, hence an increased chance of jams.

Thats an issue that can't really be solved unless the dart designs are changed.

You have the right idea in simply converting streamline darts into tagger-like darts.

I have done some tests on similiar dart conversions, i basically stick a small dot of velcro to the tips of streamline darts and found that they could stick quite well on dart tag vests, though due to the smaller velcro area on streamline darts, they would also require more direct hits for them to stick properly.

Perhaps you can try out some dart conversion ideas too, see what works for you. :)

There seems to be some confusion about the extra dart storage in the handle of many of the nerf guns. I believe that it is not to hold an extra dart at all, because most of the products that have this feature are fed by magazines which need to be preloaded.

When you are done shooting people with your nerf product, you do not want to leave your blaster cocked. If the spring stays compressed for a long period of time, it loses some of its firepower. However, you must compress it in order to insert the magazine, so fire the first dart and store it in the handle for storage until it's next use. This extrnds the life of the gun.

Same as the Recon, you have to trim the parts and keep testing until the blaster can chamber and fire the Tagger or Sonic foam darts properly, its all a matter of making small adjustments step-by-step until it works.

Hi, I am trying to mod my stampede to fire dart tag rounds. I would think that shaving down the plunger to support the added length of the dart tag rounds to be damaging to the gun. I tried playing around with the internals and figured out that the release hatch inside the gun must be kept closed before the gun can fire. Is there any way to mod the such that it supports dart tags?

Interestingly, i just test fired a few Tagger foam darts in my Stampede and it works without requiring any mods... though the firing performance isn't very good.

Note that Tagger foam darts have issues being loaded into longer N-Strike clips, their larger tips tend to stack up and will end up positioned at an odd angle after 4-5 foam or more Tagger darts are loaded in... so that's an issue that would pose as quite a challenge for the use of Tagger darts in Stampedes.

Yes, this mod can also be done on a Longstrike (or any other clip-fed N-Strike blaster). Just make sure you do the mod procedures properly and keep testing the fit until it works smoothly.

In addition, do note that N-Strike clips are not originally designed to hold Tagger foam darts, so any clips longer than the 6-dart versions would still have issues working properly due to the foam darts being positioned increasingly at downward angles.

Well, this mod guide was done back in 2009 when only 6-dart clips were available in the market, i mentioned in the guide:

"do note that N-Strike clips are not originally designed to hold Tagger foam darts, so any clips longer than the 6-dart versions would still have issues working properly due to the foam darts being positioned increasingly at downward angles."

In 2011, Nerf released their new Dart Tag blasters like the Quick 16 which features an integrated inverse curved clip to hold Taggers properly.

I just made an interesting discovery with this mod, however i'm not sure if its the same for other people. When i put my Tagger darts in, if i put them with the hole facing up (on the new blue tip Taggers), i can fit more than four darts in a clip.

HI I did the mod and it didn't turn out so well. When I fire streamline darts it comes out like 5feet but before the mod it traveled at least 50ft because of the AR and spring mod. My question is, is did cutting the flanges of the bolt reduce my firing range?

I've not encountered that issue with my modded unit so far... but if i were to guess, it could be due to your particular blaster's bolt somehow being slightly looser fit for foam darts (probably due to slight manufacturing variations in plastic molding between batches), so when the flanges and dart tooth supports are cut away, the streamline foam darts don't get pushed back far enough into the bolt to create a good enough seal, so their performance are affected.

Maybe you can try narrowing the inner diameter of your existing bolt (perhaps use some smooth tape to line the inside of the bolt) to create a tighter fit for those streamline foam darts.